NEWS

Albany, N.Y. (Jan. 4, 2011) -- An Excelsior College course designed to guide veterans and military students in college and career planning has earned a 2010-2011 first-place Innovation Award from the Center for Transforming Student Services (CENTSS).

Excelsior's Success Strategies for Military and Veterans won the award in the category of “personal services suite,” which emphasizes orientation, career counseling, financial planning and placement services. This course was developed through the collaborative efforts of the Excelsior College Center for Military Education, Office of Online Education and Learning Services, and the School of Liberal Arts.

Western International University, the newest member of Transparency by Design, has completed the review process and has now published data on the College Choices for Adults website.

College Choices for Adults is always looking for more institutions to make the commitment to providing quality data to potential adult learners so they may make informed college choices. If you have an institution you're interested in which is not listed on this site, be sure to tell us through the link above "Tell Us What You Think".

Capella University President Larry Isaak joins national initiative to improve student learning

The Presidents' Alliance is committed to gathering and reporting evidence of student learning and using it to improve outcomes

MINNEAPOLIS, November 5, 2010 – Capella University(www.capella.edu) President Larry Isaak has signed on as a founding member of the Presidents' Alliance, a national initiative to improve student learning on U.S. campuses. Isaak joins more than 70 college and university presidents who have agreed to expand their efforts in gathering and reporting evidence of student learning and using it to improve outcomes. Capella University is an accredited online university* that has built its reputation by providing high quality online degree programs for working adults.

Rio Salado College’s Peer-to-Peer Plagiarism Project detects plagiarism among its 36,000 online students, using exclusively internal staff and resources. The system is intended to deter cheating, which will greatly benefit students by helping to ensure the long-term value and integrity of Rio’s academic programs. As of March 2010, the system has scanned thousands of new student submissions and has detected 450 suspected cases of peer-to-peer plagiarism—cases that would almost certainly not have been detected using more traditional monitoring techniques. This is either because the two submissions were only a partial match – that is, one student changed a substantial portion of the text prior to submission – or because the two students were enrolled in different semesters or with different instructors. The system has also run consistently over time with extremely minimal downtime, which reflects its long-term stability.

Faculty and staff response to the plagiarism detector has been extremely positive. John Jensen, current Rio Salado faculty president, praised the new system: “The peer-to-peer plagiarism detection system is a key element in fortifying Rio Salado’s commitment to academic integrity. What is more, it reinforces in students the formation of ethical behavior and self-reliance as critical values in their character development and their learning as a personal responsibility. In the end we feel that this system supports authentication in the online learning environment that meets or exceeds the capabilities of the physical classroom.” Watch the video!

Salt Lake City — College Choices for Adults charter member, Western Governors University, www.wgu.edu, the nation’s only non-profit, fully online university, has received the 2010 Ralph E. Gomory Award for Quality Online Education from the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). Sloan-C, an association of institutions and organizations of higher education engaged in online learning, annually presents this award to an institution that has demonstrated its commitment to assessing and improving the quality of its online education programs.

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College Choices for Adults adds Horizons blog

College choices for Adults has added a new feature for potential adult learners - the Horizons blog. Horizons will focus on bringing adult learners information they can use in their studies and the rest of their lives. It will bring resources to help maintain balance, stories of current learners and tips and tricks from higher education leaders. If you're an adult learner, we hope to see you there - be sure to leave comments and add to the discussion.

The NonTraditional Students Report features College Choices for Adults

In the November 2009 issue of the NonTraditional Students Report, College Choices for Adults is the cover story. The article "New Web site helps adults choose their best-fit online program" focused on the launch of the site and the data it provides for students. It also discusses the benefits of membership for institutions and the step forward the initiative is taking in greater transparency and accountability in online higher education. A full text, PDF version of this article is available here. To find out more about the benefits of joining the Transparency by Design initiative visit its site: http://www.transparencybydesign.org.

"Nazarene Bible College is delighted to participate in Transparency by Design and College Choices for Adults because it provides a system and a process for measuring quality online programs and ensuring a standard of best practices," said Dr. David Phillips, Vice President for Online Academic Services. "For NBC, it enhances our efforts of continual improvement as we are examined and evaluated. We feel this is a very significant step for us because of the growth in online education."